Wear Your Mask - COVID-19 Thread II

[Inquisitive Raven]

You know how every year there's something really popular that most people just can't get at Christmas time?

Guess what fits that bill this year in Ontario.

If you said "booster vaccinations", you guessed right. I'm self-isolating... again.

How about home Covid tests?

[Norgarth]

I managed to get my Booster shot Sunday afternoon

[robkelk]

You know how every year there's something really popular that most people just can't get at Christmas time?

Guess what fits that bill this year in Ontario.

If you said "booster vaccinations", you guessed right. I'm self-isolating... again.

How about home Covid tests?

Those go out of stock less than a half-hour after becoming available. It's easier to get a booster shot.

[robkelk]

Quebec closes at 5pm eastern time today.

Yes, the entire province. Yes, the province that one could hide Texas in. Yes, less than a week before Christmas.

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nunavut are about to impose similar rules. PEI will include mandatory isolation for everybody coming into the province. And as of this posting, British Columbia is about to make an announcement.

That's half of the provinces in Canada and one of the three territories.

[Inquisitive Raven]

Welp, so much for ever getting rid of Covid. It's in the deer population.

I was on a Christmas Zoom call with my family today and my sister's boyfriend said that state fish and wildlife agents have been testing every deer bagged this hunting season and finding Covid in about forty percent of the animals. That's in Massachusetts, btw.

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, I was getting the impression based on New Zealand's issues with COVID cropping up occasionally with people who never travelled that there had to be a local wild animal pocket that got it. And indication are that Omicron evolved out in another wild animal population and then jumped back.

[robkelk]

Source

[robkelk]

I was sufficiently curious to run a report on how much data usage my home account has used so far over the pandemic.

When I checked my two-year usage back in December 2019, it was pretty consistent month-to-month, and I see that that consistency continued through March 2020. Then we were locked down and I had to work from home.


  Data usage for robkelk in 2020 and 2021.png (Size: 25.11 KB / Downloads: 245)

I am so glad that I have an unlimited-data plan...

[robkelk]

Quebec has cancelled New Year's Eve.

There's a curfew in effect 5 pm December 31 to 5 am January 1... and the 5 pm to 5 am curfew will remain in place after that until further notice. Fines for breaking curfew start at $1000 and go up from there. (Anybody with "a valid reason" to break curfew will be allowed to, but the article doesn't list valid reasons.)

EDIT: And stores in Quebec are now closed on Sundays, "with the exception of certain businesses such as convenience stores, gas stations and pharmacies". Restaurants are closed for indoor dining altogether.

[classicdrogn]

Well, this year is certainly off to a great start - new COVID cases today here in Plymouth county were four times the peak this time last year, and three times the absolute highest in April 2020. And it's still a few days early for all the New Years' party results...

[robkelk]

Ontario is finally following Quebec's lead... but not to the same extent.

The Premier's finally noticed that there's an election coming up, and his numbers on this issue aren't so good...

[Norgarth]

from Dec 17th '21, - Covid-19 deaths by country

[Umbire]

Senior Biden official to CNN on potential for further covid relief aid

"No. There might be something small for restaurants. But the economy is booming, there are millions of open jobs, and we do not believe people should be sitting at home if they are vaccinated and boosted, as most adults are," the senior official said when asked if additional stimulus legislation was being taken seriously.

The official added, "So we are not going to write checks to incentivize people to sit at home, and we are not going to bail out businesses if the economy seems strong," leaving the possibility open "if something changes."

So, we (read "the government") basically gave up, how's y'alls Wednesday?

[robkelk]

Quebec considers requiring showing a valid vaccination certificate in order to purchase alcohol or marijuana

I suppose that's one way to get some of the stragglers to get their shots.

[robkelk]

Senior Biden official to CNN on potential for further covid relief aid

"No. There might be something small for restaurants. But the economy is booming, there are millions of open jobs, and we do not believe people should be sitting at home if they are vaccinated and boosted, as most adults are," the senior official said when asked if additional stimulus legislation was being taken seriously.

The official added, "So we are not going to write checks to incentivize people to sit at home, and we are not going to bail out businesses if the economy seems strong," leaving the possibility open "if something changes."

So, we (read "the government") basically gave up, how's y'alls Wednesday?

Restaurants need help in the USA? Next you'll be telling me people in the USA are retiring en masse because of the pandemic...

The pandemic is changing how restaurants do business — and it might be for good

[robkelk]

Babies admitted to hospital with COVID-19 had unvaccinated mothers

Note the plurals in that headline

---

There's a link in that story which leads to a site specifically for pediatric doctors. And that site's front page has a link to the group's report on the Number of Live Births and Stillbirths among Infants born in Ontario, by COVID-19 Vaccination Status. Yes, they have actual numbers.

Related to COVID-19 vaccination, evidence about the safety and effectiveness of mRNA COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy is growing rapidly. To-date, there have been no pregnancy-related safety concerns identified and all the major obstetrical organizations in Canada, the US, the UK and many other countries have recommended the vaccine for pregnant and breastfeeding individuals to protect them from COVID-19, which is now considered a vaccine-preventable disease.

[aku]

Happy New Year, long time no speak.

Got the booster shot 2 hours ago, 4 days shy of 5 months after the second.  StIKo (Permanent Vaccination Committee) grudgingly came to say that you can do it around the 5 months mark, not just after 6 months. Too short before we (I and Dad) drove to my sister for Christmas to get the shot then.

Nov/Dec wave looks to be over for Germany and Northrhine Westphalia ... Of course, the beginnings of a Jan/Feb wave are showing up in the charts now

[robkelk]

They've tossed this one out for reactions...

Provinces could make vaccination mandatory, says federal health minister

"Fifty per cent of hospitalizations now, in Quebec, are due to people not having been vaccinated," [Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos ] said. "That's a burden on health care workers, a burden on society which is very difficult to bear and for many people difficult to understand.

"That's why I'm signalling this is a conversation which I believe provinces and territories, in support with the federal government, will want to have over the next weeks and months."

Quebec has already chosen a different approach: make presentation of proof of vaccination mandatory before being allowed into various businesses, starting with liquor stores and cannabis stores.

"By limiting the places they can go, we're limiting their contacts," Dubé said, referring to the unvaccinated.

"If you don't want to get vaccinated, stay home."

[LynnInDenver]

"If you don't want to get vaccinated, stay home."

Yeah, I wish they had the courage to actually roll this out here. I'm tired of being the one having to stay the hell home, even being vaxxed and boosted, because of protecting the ones who can't get vaxxed, and trying to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed, since I can technically still be a spreader. I'm tired of having one of my hobbies basically being made unavailable to me because of the prior, specifically conventions. I'm tired of having to plan visits from friends around certain windows and timeframes to minimize the increase in the bubble size. I'm tired of having to do the same level of planning to visit a non-vital store, to sit down at a restaurant. I'm tired of having to check the numbers as part of the planning process.

I'm just tired of the whole thing.

[robkelk]

Photo taken yesterday:



Source of the photo, and source of the sign

[robkelk]

Hospital staff in Windsor, Ont., find ivermectin hidden inside COVID-19 patient's stuffed animal

It amazes me that somebody thought they could get away with smuggling ivermectin or anything else into a hospital. The staff are trained to spot the smuggling of illicit substances, after all.

[Dartz]

Pandemic Over

At least here

Couple of months after we thought it'd be with an extra few doses of vaccine but it's done.

[robkelk]

Anti-vaxxers complain en masse about an advert that included a five-second clip of Santa showing his vaccination card.

Most commercials that people object to usually attract anywhere from 50 to 200 complaints. And 200 is a big number. The Tesco ad got 5,000. It was the second-highest number of ad complaints in UK history.

The objections came from anti-vaxxers, who cited the scene as being "coercive and encouraging medical discrimination."

Thankfully, the regulators said the ad didn't break any rules and "there are no grounds for further action."

[robkelk]

Yesterday, Neil Young told Spotify to make a choice: take down virus misinformation or take down Neil Young's music.

In an open letter to his manager and record label that was posted to his website and later taken down, Young wrote: “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them. Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”

Young specified that his decision was motivated by The Joe Rogan Experience, which is currently Spotify’s most popular podcast and one of the biggest in the world. Rogan signed a US$100m deal in 2020 giving Spotify exclusive rights to the show.

Today, Spotify announced that they're taking down Neil Young's music.


So... Since Spotify places their corporate bottom line ahead of their listeners' health, anybody have any suggestions for alternate music services?

[robkelk]

Getting a bunch of protesters demonstrating at Parliament Hill today - truckers who don't want to get their shots but still want to be allowed to cross the border (so they're complaining to us instead of to Washington), with the accretion of the expected anti-vaxxers - a friend who's actually seen the convoy says it looks like ten pickups for every one commercial truck.

He also called it the "Flu Trux Klan", which I think is apropos; choices have consequences, and these folks don't like the consequences of their choices so they want to be placed above the law.